— The foreign orders portfolio of ROSATOM is growing fast. Everyone has heard the ambitious statement on raising annual investments up to RUB 350 billion. In this regard, it is interesting to know what is the progress of ROSATOM’s investment program in 2014?
— I will tell straight off that ROSATOM’s investment program for 2014 has been adjusted. Initially, RUB 350 billion was planned, but the refined figure will be about RUB 320 billion. Its major share is the investment program of Rosenergoatom (the operator of Russian NPPs); it is about RUB 220 billion. By the way, it has substantially grown as compared to the last year. ROSATOM will spend about RUB 40 billion for implementation of federal target investment programs and governmental defense order; the remainder will be spend on investment programs of ROSATOM’s business divisions.
— Given ROSATOM built and commissioned over 30 facilities in 2013, did you manage to save something?
— It is not just save something, it is to save substantially! By results of the value control management of nuclear build in Russia and abroad a total saving was RUN 13.7 billion last year. To break it down, the project cost estimate reviews conducted demonstrated a saving of RUB 4.6 billion; checks on calculations of initial maximum prices of contracts showed an economy of RUB 3.7 billion. Check of the documentation at the stage of construction and installation helped to save RUB 5.4 billion.
— The figures impress. At what expense is this saving achieved? Since the Russian pricing system, which is used for preparing construction projects, is often criticized for clunkiness?
— I am pleased to state that this is the past already. Just a month ago we witnessed a breakthrough in pricing management in the nuclear industry. The Ministry of Building and Community Services of Russia approved the sectoral costing standard (SCS) of ROSATOM. For the first time in the modern history the nuclear builders now have an efficient tool for a credible assessment of the construction cost. As of today, this is the most recent standard among similar ones, which exist at other Russia’s largest corporations, for instance, Gazprom, RZhD, RusHydro, FGC UES and some other companies.
— Our costing standard will form the base for the sectoral system of aggregated cost and resource standards. This will enable us to shift to the resource-based cost evaluation (resource costing) of projects, which is used on a wider scale in the world and more understandable to our international partners. Besides, introduction of SCS will help work out a system of basis cost recalculation indices to the current price level by regions hosting nuclear build projects and promptly calculate them, as well as establish sectoral indicators of remuneration of construction workers and installers, and do many other useful calculations.
— What about planned commissioning of the facilities under construction? Is everything on schedule?
— Construction works at Beloyarsk-4 are on the approved schedule. Currently, it runs its first criticality program, i.e. fuel assemblies are loaded into the reactor core. Rostov-3 construction is well ahead of schedule! It is built using the well-tested technology of series build of V-320 reactors. Today, they don’t have outstanding issues; they calculated “to the last nut” what equipment they need. All commissioning stages have been well-tested; skilled operating and maintenance personnel wok on the site. These people came from the first and second power units.
In-house consumer sections were connected to the power supply long ago at this unit; now, arrangement for power distribution to individual consumers nears completion. Preparations for the unsealed reactor tests are nearly completed. In fact, the testing has started already, i.e. on March 14 flushing from the pressurizer to the reactor vessel was carried out. Synchronization and connection to the grid is planned for December 17, 2014. These are realistic dates. Therefore, I am sure, the team of builders and installers will get deserved bonuses.
